POINT MUGU : Navy Reprimands Anti-War Employee

Frank Peterson is inclined to keep his opinions to himself these days.

U.S. Navy officials recently reprimanded Peterson, a civilian engineer for the Pacific Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, because he participated in a Dec. 2 anti-war protest in Ventura and declared his opposition to the impending Persian Gulf War.

His protest undermined “the confidence of the public in the integrity of the government,” his superiors ruled.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on Peterson’s behalf in federal court last week seeking to overturn the rarely used regulation that Peterson’s superiors cited in trying to silence him.

“It’s incredible that a man or woman who works for the government can’t make public statements in their off time about their political beliefs,” ACLU spokesman Joe Hicks said. “It flies in the face of everything that makes America worth fighting and dying for, the very reason we were in the Persian Gulf.”

A Navy spokesman declined comment Wednesday on Peterson’s case.

Peterson, 59, of Ventura, has joined in protests of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Grenada and Panama during his 33-year career as a civilian electrical engineer.

In December, he wore a skeleton outfit and bore a cross made of replicated M1 carbine rifles while joining about 60 people demonstrating at a holiday street fair on Main Street.

As for the remarks that his superiors found offensive, Peterson was quoted in a local paper: “I worked for the government for 30 years and Bush is making me ashamed of it. I’m a Korean War veteran and Bush is making me ashamed of being one.” The story ran with a photo of Peterson in his skeleton costume.

Until his case is resolved, the specter of additional disciplinary action has made Peterson reluctant to speak his mind.

“What is at stake here is not only the First Amendment,” said Hicks, “but the scuttling of a man’s 30-year career.”